Epidemiology of tuberculosis in Benin.

SETTING

Benin, West Africa.

OBJECTIVE

To describe the epidemiology of tuberculosis (TB) in Benin.

DESIGN

Analysis of two tuberculin surveys initiated in 1987 and 1994 and of the quarterly reports of the Basic Management Units to the National Tuberculosis Programme from 1995 to 2007.

RESULTS

The average annual risk for a child in Benin of becoming infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis was around 0.5% in the mid 1980s. The notification rate increased by approximately 1% each year over the observation period and was on average 35 per 100,000 population, with a male-to-female sex ratio of 1.8 and no shift in the age structure of the cases over the observation period. Human immunodeficiency virus prevalence was 14% (97% of the patients were tested). There is a strong gradient of incident notification rates from the north to the south of the country that seems to be related to the population density.

CONCLUSION

Both the tuberculin skin test survey results and the notification data suggest that the TB problem in Benin is much smaller than in eastern and southern African countries.